They are typical teenagers, sometimes student athletes, getting hooked and struggling with addiction.

For many young people, it starts with prescriptions.

Kathy Pierce's son, Tristan, was introduced to painkillers on the Natick football field.

"He was playing football and one of his friends who had been injured on the field tossed him a bottle of (Percocet) and said, 'Hold this for me, and help yourself,'" Pierce said. "I think it was pretty prevalent at that time that kids were using Percs and prescription drugs and passing them around. At the time I had no idea."

He became addicted to Percocet, and Pierce said their family never knew.

Like many people, when the prescriptions got too expensive and hard to get, Tristan turned to a cheaper option: heroin.

After several years, including programs and relapses, Tristan overdosed and died last year.

Mike, who asked us not to use his last name, said his struggle began with an injury when he was a freshman in high school, and a prescription for Percocet. He said no one ever warned him of its dangers.

"My leg didn't hurt while I was on them. So while I healed up, I was taking these pills, and little did I know, I was starting up my drug addiction," he said. "Rock bottom was when I overdosed junior year in high school."

Teenage drug use has long been a concern, but Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said there are new faces to the users and paths they take to addiction: younger middle-class kids, sometimes even students athletes who are injured on the field.

"We hear it from doctors, we hear it from police officers," Ryan said. "Everybody knows a lot of kids who have had injuries and surgeries."

Dr. Wayne Pasanen, from Lowell General Hospital, said doctors are simply trying to treat the pain, but young people are especially vulnerable. "We're playing with fire when we're talking about medications that are opiates or opioids, and I'm talking specifically about the drugs you all know: Percocet, Vicodin," he said.

Hillary Jacobs, with the Department of Public Health, says the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, said most adolescents in detox programs in Massachusetts are addicted to heroin and opiates.

"When they have a physical dependence on a drug, it's primarily opiates," Jacobs explains.

Jacobs said according to 2013 statistics from 16-24-year-olds in state-funded treatment programs, 49 percent reported their drug of choice was heroin, 12 percent said other opiates, and 21 percent said alcohol.

She said by comparison, younger patients had a higher rate of opiate use than older groups.

Jacobs said there is also a great concern about the amount of opiates being prescribed in emergency rooms, and the Governor's Task Force is working on new guidelines.

Jacobs said according to federal statistics, four out of five cases of heroin addiction start with prescription medications.

There are no solid numbers on recent use of opiates by teenagers, but across the state, there is a movement to tackle this problem.

Pierce speaks out to parents around Natick, urging them to be aware of the dangers and understand addiction. Ryan leads a task force in Lowell, which includes Pasanen and other doctors, nurses, police and prosecutors. Jacobs is part of the Governor's Opioid Task Force.

"I'd like to hear the doctors explain this is for pain, you can't abuse it, misuse it, overuse it. And I think the parent has to be totally vigilant," Pasanen said.

"It's a problem that's going to require a number of groups coming together really treating this as what it is: a public health and public safety problem that we have to come together and work on" Ryan said.

Pierce is on a mission to help others with her message.

"At an early age, parents have to start talking about this addiction issue," she said. "You have to prevent your kids from using it, because once they start using, it's a problem. It's a serious problem."

When it comes to prescription painkillers, she said, "You're the parent, you prescribe it, don't take the chance and let the kid hold that bottle. You hold it, you control it."

Dozens of police departments across the state will take unused prescription drugs so they don't end up in the wrong hands.